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The Department of Energy is helping to develop an understanding of scientific questions associated with the production, treatment, and transportation of crude oils, including Bakken crude oil. To support this effort, the Department’s Sandia National Laboratory recently completed a report in cooperation with the Department of Transportation -- Literature Survey of Crude Oil Properties Relevant to Handling and Fire Safety in Transport.

Each year, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) push the limits of innovation and are rewarded for their unique technological advancements by being issued U.S. patents. NETL researchers received 17 patents in 2014 for technologies including techniques that remove CO2 from flue streams, increase power efficiencies, and lower energy-production costs.

Successful laboratory tests at the Energy Department’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have verified that the use of a brine-soluble ionic surfactant could improve the efficiency of carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR).

The increased urgency of global climate change has focused the attention of many leaders around the world. While the Department of Energy remains a global leader in carbon capture and storage (CCS) research and development, CCS has grown in prominence as one international solution to an "all-of-the-above" problem.

Natural gas provides numerous benefits to millions of Americans daily, whether it’s being used to heat or air condition homes and businesses, cook meals, or power vehicles. But most people who take advantage of this versatile and important energy resource probably don’t think about the intricate and vital system that exists to bring natural gas from where it is produced to the marketplace where it can be used.

More than 30 years ago, DOE looked into the future and saw the potentially large benefit of developing promising but difficult-to-extract unconventional natural gas resources, particularly those from shale formations. As a result, it began sponsoring research and development (R&D), partnering with industry and academia, and, among other things, invested about $137 million in the Eastern Gas Shale Program between 1978 and 1992.

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz visited the Office of Fossil Energy’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s Big Hill site in Winnie, Texas. The visit is the first Secretarial appearance at an SPR field site in nine years, and it comes after a string of major SPR accomplishments in 2014.